Assemblies of God News

Youth encouraged to have hearts of finishers

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 - 4:13 PM CST

Tuesday night, students attending the 2012 National Youth
Convention entered the KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville energized from
Monday night's service, and after the first day of non-stop Fine Arts
presentations and the AIM Outreach.

Worth Dying For led the crowd in worship as videos, which
highlighted Louisville AIM Outreach efforts and The Hosanna Plan, a mission to
reach the people of Russia in eight years, stirred the hearts and turned the
students' focus to missions for the evening.

Worship leader and recording artist Jeff Deyo, performed the
title track from his new album, "Moving Mountains," during the Speed
the Light offering. Teens came prepared with cash, check, credit and text options
to raise more than $26,000 for The Hosanna Plan.

The Hosanna Plan was created in honor of Artur Saleimanov, a pastor of
Hosanna House of Prayer in Russia, who was murdered by a masked assailant in
July 2010. His passion for evangelism inspired the project.

Following his performance, Deyo announced the video for the new Speed
the Light theme, Finished, inspired by Paul's words in Acts 20:24. Following
the video, Chet Caudill, national Speed the Light and student missions
director, came to the stage to deliver a message on "The Heart of a Finisher."

"Speed the Light is all about people," Caudill said as his
sermon told the plight of Russian people who were struggling to survive - and
thought they were finished - when their paths fortunately crossed with The
Hosanna Plan.

National Speed the Light and Student Missions Director Chet Caudill delivers a message of "The Heart of a Finisher" to students Tuesday night. Finished was announced as the 2013 STL Theme and an STL offering was also taken during the service.

Caudill also shared the story of William Borden, heir of Borden dairy
company, who in the early 1900s left the family fortune to attend Yale
University to pursue God's calling to be a missionary. At Yale, he began a
prayer group that saw 1,000 of the 1,300 students come to the group by his
senior year. He traveled to East Asia to share the gospel. When Borden died an
untimely death at the age of 25, his parents were given his Bible. They found
he had written the words, "No Reserves;" "No Retreats;" and
"No Regrets" in it. These words and his determination to complete the
calling on his life have inspired people around the world - and moved the
approximately 10,000 that were in attendance at the KFC Yum! Center.

Caudill noted throughout his sermon that the biggest hindrance to
completing a task or calling is not denying one's self instead of relying on
the Holy Spirit for strength. His message reinforced the challenge "to
stand" from Monday night and encouraged students to seek the power of the
Holy Spirit to help them as they return to school in the next few weeks.

As he concluded, Caudill challenged the students - those who were
ready to be finishers and call on the Holy Spirit for strength - to stand
once again. Thousands of Assemblies of God youth stood throughout the arena as
leadership laid hands on them as they called out to the Holy Spirit for
fullness and empowerment.

"Yesterday's service really showed me the importance of finishing
our task that we have been assigned by God," Tolu Fadahunsi, a high school
senior from Eternal Life Christian Center in Somerset, New Jersey, says. "We
have been assigned to go out into all the world and preach the gospel. The
message really encouraged and strengthened me. It was refreshing and a reminder
that God didn't give up on us. He is relentless. We have to be relentless in
our pursuit of Him. God really poured out yesterday and it was awesome."

For more information on Speed the Light, click here. Students and leaders who desire to support The
Hosanna Plan project can do so throughout the week by texting STL to 85944 to
give $10.

For streaming of the final rounds of the Christian Band and
Percussion, Unconventional performing live on the KFC Yum! Center stage this
evening (6:25 EDT) or to watch the archived messages from earlier this week, click here.